Jesus Humanity, and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology

Rating:
Summary: A Christocentric, very, very brief systematic theology.
Review: This is a nice little volume from Tanner, and one can only hope that the larger systematic that will eventually come from her pen will continue her ability to communicate difficult trinitarian language into useable language for both religious and lay believers. At only 134 pages, she chooses to focus on only a few of the classical doctrines which will outline the faith proclaimed by the churches, and she chooses wisely. Her book breaks down into four sections: (1) Jesus, (2) The Theological Structure of Things, (3) The Shape of Human Life, and (4) The End, or, roughly, Christology, Methodology, Anthropology, and Eschatology. For Tanner, none of the last three can be understood in the Christian paradigm without an understanding of the role of Jesus in the Christian faith. Now, one might question the order of presentation here, since a full-blown Christology is difficult to begin with. However, she rightly realizes that it is Christian faith, after all, faith in Jesus the Christ, which defines Christian theology, and so her focus on Christology is both inventive and stimulating. Also, her Christology turns out to be a Jesusology, but not in a pursuit of the historical Jesus, so she approaches the matter in a decidcedly original way.

Much recent theology, of course, has perhaps suffered from a surfreit of Christology, to the point of Christomonism in some cases. Tanner takes her christocentrism in a different direction, however, and manages to speak about the historical figure of Jesus not as a subject of history, but as a focus of Christian faith. She thus moves towards an overthrow of the Jesus of History - Christ of Faith dichotomy, by understanding the way that contemporary church people can focus on the Jesus of Faith, so to speak. She takes accounts in the early church of Jesus and reworks them into a view of a "graced human life" (21), seen in Jesus. All of this makes the concept of the Trinity a very human-centered doctrine (which is refreshing), and while she devotes space to a discussion of the immanent Trinity, for Tanner, the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and in her hands the Trinity becomes a very practical doctrine indeed. In a way, one could say that, according to Tanner, Jesus' humanity leads into the doctrine of the Trinity because the trinitarian perichoresis (the divine "dance," literally) includes, in the Incarnation, God, creation, and humanity. Her conclusions about the human nature of Jesus' divinity lead into a very relational theology, of God as transcendent and yet gift-giving, and this saves the sometimes rigid systematic form from ossification.

Tanner's theological sources are firmly in the Reformed tradition, and she makes very heavy use of Barth throughout the text -- scarcely a page goes by without his name. Karl Rahner also shows up more than a few times, which is a nice juxtaposition with Barth at times, and Tillich is wholly absent. This is as it should be, given Tanner's (mostly unspoken) focus on Incarnation -- Tillich is largely without the Incarnation in his theology, and the humanity of Jesus means something different for him than it does Tanner.

On the whole, this is a successful book as long as it tries to relate all the doctrines of the faith back to her understanding of Jesus. If this perspective is lost, however, the book often seems arbitrary in its argument about Jesus' significance, especially in its main topic, i.e. the Trinity. However, there is no reason why one should lose sight of Tanner's position on Jesus, since it is well argued very early in the text. Whether the reader will follow Tanner in her interpretation of Jesus is another matter, but she has given good practical reasons why this reading of Jesus allows for useful contemporary visions of the Trinity. Tanner's book thus adds a welcome voice to the conversation about the significance of systematic theology for contemporary Christian belief.